"Tepid city for a tepid people" is this satirical survey's sniffy verdict on what is apparently the world's dullest cultural epicenter. Magny, the sommelier at a Paris wine-tasting school, nods at felicitous urban stuff (Berthillon's ice cream shop, the Place des Vosges), fashion dogmas, and quirky idioms (putain "whore" is the all-purpose intensifier in his Euro-trashy circles), but these are rare respites in a comprehensive attack on Parisians' rancid characters and deluded mores. The author insists that Parisian women are sexless and uptight, that Parisian men all seem gay, and that both sexes are haughty, nasty, neurotic, hypocritical, and maddeningly hard to fire.